Just Because it is Really Cool

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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Not too many times now days you get to see a B-29 from a B-29. I have seen FiFi many times myself here in Texas and even got the enjoyment of her making a pass above my boat while out fishing in the middle of nowhere while about 1,000 feet off the deck.

Check out the video.

For the first time in more than 50 years, two B-29 Superfortresses flew in formation during the 2017 EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, WI.
 
Oh man. I wish someone had a video of what it looked like from the ground. I've always loved B-29s. Probably more so than any other planes - civilian or military.
 
Man thats pretty cool. WWII machinery at its finest right there. Would have loved to hear it flying over head from the ground.
 
Nice, I took a tour of Fifi last year when it was the only flying B-29. It's nice to see they got another in shape. A couple of years ago I flew in the B-17 Nine-O-Nine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine-O-Nine It was well worth the cost IMHO I have some great videos from the Nose flying over Cape Ann (North of Boston). Last year I went to Duxford in the UK for the Flying Legends Airshow and enjoyed 109's Spitfire's Hurricanes, etc.
 
Beautiful airplane.

I'd love to see a formation with everything from the B-17 to the B-2....
 
and it looks like there is a b-25 in the front of them. you can see it at the :51 mark. the twin engine slit tail plane in front of the other b-29

pretty cool. I live near edwards air force base and i get to see all sorts of planes all the time. but the BEST.. by far was on a bus coming home one night, as the bus passed in front of the palmdale airfield a B2 was just taking off and flew right over the bus. you could FEEL the plane.. was great
 
I didnt watch the video, but I will add (if not mentioned in video), that you can watch live feeds from oshkosh right now. also listen in on the air traffic control for the show and airport. its fudging nuts.. pretty much planes landing with 1/2 mile separation (for the most part) from early morning thru dusk, except when airport closes for airshows. and using 3 runways (2 real ones, and the convert a parallel taxiway into a runway as well).

just do a search for EAA Airventure and you will be directed to the right places
 
This gave me the uneasy feeling those boys must of had as they saw their protection aircraft peal off and flew deeper into axis territory and the flack cannons start up. The horrors of war.
 
Got to walk through a flyable B-17 "Miss Angela" at an air museum in Palm Springs years ago. That by itself is neat by not terribly remarkable...what was cool was one of the folks in the plane with me was an old ball turret gunner who hadn't actually been inside one since the war. He was pretty small but I'm still not sure how he fit in that damn thing. Never got to fire in anger, though, he was late to the party and the Germans weren't sending up many interceptors. The way he described flak, though, when you're in a glass cage 20,000 feet in the air gave me nightmares, though!

Of course being a fairly short drive to Wright-Patterson, you can see all kinds of fun stuff there.
 
Vader1975 said:
This gave me the uneasy feeling those boys must of had as they saw their protection aircraft peal off and flew deeper into axis territory and the flack cannons start up. The horrors of war.
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The B29 was not used in Europe in WWII. It could fly at a higher altitude than almost all Japanese fighters. It did have to descend for bombing runs though
 
phred15 said:
The B29 was not used in Europe in WWII. It could fly at a higher altitude than almost all Japanese fighters. It did have to descend for bombing runs though
Click to expand...

I was going to make the same comment, but Japan was an Axis power. With that in mind the vast majority of B-29 flights were unescorted
 
griffinhart said:
Nice, I took a tour of Fifi last year when it was the only flying B-29. It's nice to see they got another in shape. A couple of years ago I flew in the B-17 Nine-O-Nine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine-O-Nine It was well worth the cost IMHO I have some great videos from the Nose flying over Cape Ann (North of Boston). Last year I went to Duxford in the UK for the Flying Legends Airshow and enjoyed 109's Spitfire's Hurricanes, etc.
Click to expand...

You can pay to fly in a B-17? Welp, that just got added to the bucket list.
 
Private_Ops said:
You can pay to fly in a B-17? Welp, that just got added to the bucket list.
Click to expand...

https://commemorativeairforce.org/

Lookup their schedule to an airport near you!

I got a ride in Fifi. Problem is they are so damn BIG, you can compare it to a modern airliner regarding internal space. Now the B-17 is freaking puny. With a non-pressurized cabin and you can walk from front to back through the bomb bay across a skinny aluminum plank. Those dudes were brave!

When I got my Fifi ride there was a Japanese fellow who also bought a ride.

He said he'd seen B-29's before...

When he was a young boy...

..and they flew overhead.
 
otherweeb said:
https://commemorativeairforce.org/

Lookup their schedule to an airport near you!

I got a ride in Fifi. Problem is they are so damn BIG, you can compare it to a modern airliner regarding internal space. Now the B-17 is freaking puny. With a non-pressurized cabin and you can walk from front to back through the bomb bay across a skinny aluminum plank. Those dudes were brave!

When I got my Fifi ride there was a Japanese fellow who also bought a ride.

He said he'd seen B-29's before...

When he was a young boy...

..and they flew overhead.
Click to expand...

There was a place out by the Palm Springs museum where they'd take up in old Texan trainers and you could do mock dog fights. Sadly didn't have the $$ for that.
 
RogueTadhg said:
Oh man. I wish someone had a video of what it looked like from the ground. I've always loved B-29s. Probably more so than any other planes - civilian or military.
Click to expand...

C'mon, bro, it's EAA AirVenture...of course there's video from the ground.

 
Lol when I glanced at the video preview without reading the title, at first I thought it was from a flight sim :p
 
Thanks for sharing. Great machines. I see some classics flying from the Hooks airport (North Houston) every now and then and am always amazed.
 
Load up some nukes on those B-29's and fly them over Pyongyang. They will laugh at the old and slow prop planes until they get vaporized. If the B29 was good enough for Japan, good enough for NK.

Too soon?
 
floridateddybear said:
I didnt watch the video, but I will add (if not mentioned in video), that you can watch live feeds from oshkosh right now. also listen in on the air traffic control for the show and airport. its fudging nuts.. pretty much planes landing with 1/2 mile separation (for the most part) from early morning thru dusk, except when airport closes for airshows. and using 3 runways (2 real ones, and the convert a parallel taxiway into a runway as well).

just do a search for EAA Airventure and you will be directed to the right places
Click to expand...
Yeah it's nuts, my father is there right now.. he's wanted to try fly in one of these years but air traffic control is so hectic he's not willing to risk it.
 
otherweeb said:
https://commemorativeairforce.org/

Lookup their schedule to an airport near you!

I got a ride in Fifi. Problem is they are so damn BIG, you can compare it to a modern airliner regarding internal space. Now the B-17 is freaking puny. With a non-pressurized cabin and you can walk from front to back through the bomb bay across a skinny aluminum plank. Those dudes were brave!

When I got my Fifi ride there was a Japanese fellow who also bought a ride.

He said he'd seen B-29's before...

When he was a young boy...

..and they flew overhead.
Click to expand...

There is also the Collings Foundation. They have a B-25, B-24 and the Nine-O-Nine that tour the US.
http://www.collingsfoundation.org/events/

A p-51 Mustang also is a part of the tour. You can be a passenger on any of them, though the Mustang is crazy expensive. They also have a ME-262 based in Texas.

The Collings foundation was the organization that purchased the Littlefield collection in California a few years ago. They are in the process of building a Museum in Mass for them. They also do a few events a year in Stow Mass including the "Battle for the Airfield" which is a lot of fun.
 
Wow so Doc finally got finished? This is great news.

I found the Doc restoration site many years ago and used to follow the updates but then they had to move it and it all went quiet a few years ago . I kind of forgot about it.

Thanks for the reminder and that it's up and flying again.

Great stuff!
 
Man this is awesome. I love WW2 Aircraft and the stories behind them.

When I was a kid in Topeka Kansas ( we have one of the worlds longest runways ) we often had airshows but we would occasionally get Fi Fi due to us having the longer runway. Once Fi Fi had to make an emergency landing due to an engine failure which they ended up having to replace. It cost $100,000+ dollars and of course the story was in the news paper. I think there were other visits. But I drove out there just to see this plane on the day she left. We also had B-17's, B-24's, B-25's and a handful of German Fighters and Bomber's over the years at various airshows.

in the early 90's one B-17 in particular nicknamed "Texas Raiders" had a walk-thru for $10 dollars during one of these airshows. The money went toward the upkeep of the plane. You guys would be shocked at how small that bomber was on the inside and it held 10 men!!!!. There are also a gazillion control wires running the length of the fuselage.

One of my coolest experiences ever in life was that after I exited the plane and signed the guess book I noticed that there were all these WW2 veterans standing around and talking about their service during WW2. This was 91 or 92 I think so these guys would have been in the mid 70's to early 80's. They are of course all passed away now as this was 25 years ago.

One guy would say he was a tail-gunner, the other a ball turret gunner, one a radio operator or a co-pilot, so on and so forth. I stood there in amazement. There were several guys standing around. I remember taking a second and third look at the guestbook just to see their ages and where they were from and units they served with along with the positions they had in this bomber. One guy that stood out was this thick short old man, crusty and barely getting around. I remember him very specifically because he looked like he would have been assigned to the ball-turret position and it was just a few minutes before he said he was to others.

As a PC gamer one of the coolest games ever was SWOTL ( Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe ) and Chuck Yeager's Air Combat back during this same time frame, 91 and 92.
 
I dont know if they got her fixed or not, but during yesterdays (friday) air show, upon landing, FIFI suffered hydraulic failure and lost brakes. they got her stopped without any damage, but did end up shutting down runway 36L for a few mins while the ground crews scrambled to her. was wondering what happened when I seen Doc abort the landing (was 2nd of the pair) and go around. as of end of the afternoon air show yesterday, she was still at the junction of the runway and a taxiway at the north end of 36L.

they continued to use 18/36 for takeoffs (headed south, away from FiFi) once they got the emergency crews out of the area. diverted the rest of the airshow landings to runway 27.

these are the things that a lot of people dont realize, these planes (pretty much all WW2 aircraft), would fail at any time, without warning. its a real risk flying them, but they need to be flown and enjoyed by everyone. OH, and they are EXPENSIVE to maintain. not to mention fuel/oil/ect. cant go down to the corner store for most of the parts, they just dont exist anymore.
 
phred15 said:
The B29 was not used in Europe in WWII. It could fly at a higher altitude than almost all Japanese fighters. It did have to descend for bombing runs though
Click to expand...
Ah yes I was thinking of the B-17. Still gave me that same feeling.
 
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